asked the Minister for Finance if his attention has been drawn to recent remarks attributed to the Revenue Commissioners to the effect that exaggerated tax assessments are sometimes used as a tactic by the Revenue Commissioners; his reaction to such remarks, if he will give an assurance that the Revenue Commissioners will regard the wilful issuing of an exaggerated assessment by any inspector of taxes as improper; the steps if any, he proposes to take to prevent any such assessments from issuing in the future; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Tax Assessments.
69.
The Deputy's question may refer to remarks published in the Sunday Press on 20 September, 1987. In this connection I would refer the Deputy to a press statement which appeared in the daily newspapers of 13 October, 1987. In this statement the Revenue Commissioners expressed their concern that recent media reports could have led to a public misunderstanding as to the position about estimated assessments made by inspectors of taxes. The statement indicated that inspectors of taxes do not deliberately inflate the tax assessments made by them and that, in the absence of a statement of income from the taxpayer concerned, the inspector makes an estimated assessment to the best of his information and judgment.
The taxpayer is the only person in a position to provide an accurate return of his income. If he does not provide such a return on a timely basis, the inspector must resort to estimated assessments which may ultimately prove to be excessive. The remedy is in the hands of taxpayers and it consists of the submission by them of returns of income on time.
I ask the Minister to dissociate himself from the remarks which were published in The Sunday Press of 20 September to which he referred. They contain the sentences:
These figures of large amounts outstanding from the self-employed tend to be bandied about but what appears to be outstanding is not real money at all. Estimates are sent out to provoke people into giving us information of accounts and the figures published tend to be the inflated amounts of the estimated asessments.
If that is not a clear indication from the Chairman of the Revenue Commissioners that there was a policy of sending out inflated assesments I cannot imagine what is. I ask the Minister to dissociate himself from those remarks and to indicate to the public at large through this House that such a policy will not be pursued in the future.
That was an interpretation that was taken from those remarks which I do not accept to be accurate.